


Time Best Spent

by clearinghouse



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Mystery, Pre-Canon, References to Drugs, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 05:27:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14888487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clearinghouse/pseuds/clearinghouse
Summary: Holmes keeps mysteriously falling asleep whenever Watson takes him out on the town. It’s only a matter of time until Watson tumbles to a painful, yet obvious conclusion: this is Holmes’s way of communicating that he’s tired of Watson.Can be read as pre-slash or friendship. Written for the prompt: "Five Times Watson Found Holmes Asleep Somewhere Other Than a Bed and One Time Watson Fell Asleep (in a bed) With Holmes."





	Time Best Spent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [monkiainen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monkiainen/gifts).



> Written for monkiainen for the [Holmestice](https://holmestice.dreamwidth.org/) 2018 Gift Exchange. I've always wanted to write a Ritchie-verse fic, and your delightful prompt gave me an excellent reason to get around to it. This isn't a case fic, exactly, but there is a bit of a mystery involved. I hope you enjoy the mindless fluff!

Gladstone didn’t lift his head when he heard the door open on the other side of the room. He merely opened his eyes halfway and lazily watched as the doctor strode into the flat with hardly a glance around. Any dog would agree with Gladstone that Watson was not in the best of spirits tonight. Gladstone immediately took note of the telling signs of unhappiness of Watson’s features, and the aloofness of his almost military posture. The man was clearly not pleased. Gladstone could guess the reason.

But the reason soon made itself obvious, regardless. A second man—a detective, the sharpest individual of a dull species, Gladstone thought—sauntered on in without a care. He dropped a few packages and textured papers from under his arms onto a chair, and tossed his homburg hat and frock coat someplace or other. The hat caught onto one of the many shiny pieces of bric-a-brac that littered the room, but Holmes wasn’t paying attention. There was a glowing smirk on his face, like the sort worn by a boy who has just pulled a fast one on the adults.

The thing was, Watson wasn’t smirking with him. Gladstone glanced anxiously from Holmes to Watson. Hopefully, nothing serious had come between them. Although Watson hadn’t known Holmes for very long now, the two were fast becoming friends, by all appearances. No two men compelled by circumstances to split rent had ever suited each other more satisfactorily. Day by day, they were strolling together arm-in-arm down the merry, crime-ridden road to friendship, or something like that. Except, the road must have had an open manhole in it, because something had gone wrong.

“I say, Watson, we should put some of this haul to use right away. Which one is most deserving to be opened first? What about this one? Ah, what’s this it says? ‘The cup that cheers, but not inebriates',” Holmes quoted thoughtfully, reading off the label of one of the many paper-wrapped packages. “It’s a really delightful name for tea. Insulting, a little, yet with such expert subtly that it seems almost poetry. What do you think, Watson? Or perhaps the hookah is more fitting for the occasion?” Holmes fished out the largest item, and pulled idly at its ribbon. “It is a pretty spectacle, perhaps among the pinnacles of human invention. Ah, yes, what a nice picture we could make with it. We could change out of these straitjackets that you call clothes, and into our nightshirts, and lie about on some blankets like a proper pair of spiritualists.” 

No answer came. Watson quietly put up his own top hat and ulster in their correct proper places. Then, he began to rifle mechanically through Holmes’s desk, which was crowded with several of Holmes’s in-progress experiments. Watson didn’t actually knock the beakers over, in his suppressed rage, but that act of self-restraint was a reflection on his character, and not on the depth of his mood, which permeated like heat insidiously through the room. Watson picked up Holmes’s morphine case, opened it, inspected it, found it to be in order, and closed it again in disappointment. 

Holmes, unfortunately, being apparently more dull tonight than was his custom, didn’t take much notice of this. “Of all the ideas for passing a day, Watson, I’m not sure if today’s wasn’t your best. Why, it was a veritable—” Holmes’s voice was generally fast and unstoppable as a train, but it stopped here so that Holmes could honour the souvenir with a deep whiff. He absorbed the smell with a contented exhale. “—imports catalogue brought to life,” he finished. “A little India is a fascinating thing to find in the middle of London. The rugs were first-rate, and the curry was most fine. The ride on that giant spinning wheel thing was most novel, and so—soothing, should I say?—so soothing, that it put me to sleep. Let’s not forget, also, that I managed to have myself unofficially banned by several shops.” He sniffed the soap again, and grinned. “Almost half of them, I think. Perhaps exactly half? It’s quite an accomplishment.” Here, he paused and left the air free for some manner of a contribution from Watson.

But this evening—and it was, in fact, evening, despite the fact that Holmes had completely lost track of time, and fancied it was hours earlier—Baker Street was running a one-man show. 

“I wonder if I made a lasting enemy of any of those delightful jugglers?” Holmes said. “I admit that I quite appreciated that look on your face, Watson, when I walked in between the pair of them and made them my assistants. It is a rare treat when I can do something daring enough to embarrass even you, iron-nerved as you are.” Forgetting his toys for the nonce, Holmes came over near to Gladstone, to stand behind Watson. Holmes threw a careless arm round the doctor’s neck, and kept on talking. “At any rate, we shall have to go to the exhibition again, and see what we missed. Perhaps we’ll see one of the entertainments showing at the exhibition’s theatre, sometime?”

There was another clear pause here to invite a reply, but it was no good. Watson wasn’t quite equal to the task of a conversation. He didn’t even glare at Holmes. Instead, he pulled unceremoniously away, leaving Holmes blinking in the way of someone who just had his ears boxed. Watson came next to his gladstone bag (not the dog) and ran his quick fingers through the contents inside, searching for no one else knew what.

Holmes was silent for a long moment. His fingertips played a spot of piano on each other. “Well,” he said eventually, wandering once more to his pile of goods and selecting from it a juggling ball which he had acquired earlier as a particularly special souvenir, “I didn’t say they banned me from the exhibition altogether, if that’s your concern. If it helps, I know that I have a silk kurta and a turban around here somewhere that would make a passable disguise for me. Come, don’t you want to see the show again? I seem to recall you saying something about wanting to see more of the animals in that zoo contraption?”

But in a sudden breeze of frustration, Watson threw down his bag with a muttered curse, and shot a cutting glare at the detective. “That’s quite enough of you mocking me,” he muttered coldly. He looked pointedly away from Holmes, and abandoned him, marching off towards the detective’s bedroom. 

Holmes stood, baffled. Gladstone could understand why. Though Watson’s behaviour was always beyond Holmes’s powers of understanding, this went a step further than even Watson’s typical extraordinary nonsense. Holmes tilted his head in childlike confusion. For the first time since entering, the detective wondered at the morphine case on his busy desk, and at the gladstone bag. Then, Holmes slithered after Watson, tip-toeing in his direction in the fashion of a criminal on the job, holding the juggling ball behind his back like contraband.

Gladstone, for his part, despite being the dog of the house, didn’t tend to waste his time loyally chasing after Watson everywhere the man went. He wasn’t Holmes. No, Gladstone had better uses for his time. He could look out the window at other dogs, for example. However, it was true that Gladstone was modestly interested in seeing how Watson was about to one-up Holmes. So Gladstone tagged behind them, unhurriedly. 

By the time Gladstone’s nose was around the bend of Holmes’s bedroom door, Holmes was hopping about, trying not to seem bothered, and floundering spectacularly. “You know, Watson, it’s not everyone I allow to rummage through my bedroom without explaining themselves. Lestrade will be very envious when you tell him. I can’t tell you on how many occasions he would have liked to pick my digs clean. Would you believe it, that he’s sometimes taken me for a burglar? Yes, it’s very absurd, but what can be done? Besides, anything I pinch goes straight under your bed,” he thoughtfully tossed up his ball once, “well, when I’m finished with it. A genius hiding place, isn’t it? It’s so obvious, it’s the one place he’ll never think to look.”

With his jaw clenched to its tightest gear, Watson turned on Holmes hotly. An upturned palm was thrust out, but it wasn’t of the welcoming variety that promises acceptance and friendship. “Holmes,” Watson demanded, “shut up. I don’t know where you’ve taken it from, but I know that you have it. Whatever it was you used, hand it over right now.”

On pure instinct, Holmes drew back at the doctor’s harsh tone. It was instinct, because Holmes usually did have something to hide. At this minute, however, Holmes didn’t, which made this whole proceeding particularly odd. His face was all unhappy innocence. “I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t play the idiot with me. And don’t take me for a fool.” Watson’s gaze was hard and cold as stone. He advanced a step, which Holmes mirrored via hesitant retreat. “I know what you’ve been doing, even if I can’t find the evidence. Tell me, which was it? Was it morphine?”

Holmes’s great amazement at Watson’s inscrutable words got the better of him. He stared at Watson, and there was an uncomfortable lull in the action for a while. “Normally,” Holmes began slowly, “when you ask me that question, it is understandable, because I am lying on the sofa with a needle in my arm. I’d be happy to go and make that a reality, of course, but this must be the first time you’ve asked me to do so, even if it was in this,” his hand waved about, “gloriously roundabout way.”

“Don’t be cute,” a bristling Watson forced himself to say in measured tones, which cracked at their seams. “This is serious. I am referring to your little stunt from an hour ago. What did you use to put yourself to sleep while we were riding the big wheel carriage?”

But Holmes only grew even more incredulous. “Put myself to sleep?” he repeated. “Do you mean, when I accidentally fell asleep? Because I told you—” 

“Only an infant could fall asleep in public, the way you did.”

Holmes huffed. “You know how much I hate to be contrary, but I’m fairly certain that’s precisely what I did. What can I say? The wheel was a very tranquilizing experience.”

“It was absolutely nothing of the sort. You won’t convince me, Holmes. And you shouldn’t try to insist to a doctor—a doctor who knows you—that you haven’t used anything today,” Watson said, his gaze scanning piercingly across Holmes’s face. “I can see the signs that you have—when I have sense enough to look for them.” 

“How remarkable, for you to see signs of morphine in someone who hasn’t used any as of late. But please, by all means, stare at my face. It makes me feel that I must be quite handsome.”

There was another menacing step forward. “I’ll ask you only once more. Hand it over.”

Holmes sighed awkwardly. Evidently, reason and sense were getting them nowhere. It was time to give the old glossing-over method a try. He put a friendly hand on Watson’s stiff shoulder. “It is growing late,” Holmes suggested. He glanced out a window, and gasped a bit to see that it was, indeed, late. Gladstone rolled his eyes. Holmes shrugged, and gave Watson a sort of weak smile. “See, it is late. You are tired, and confused—”

The smile failed to penetrate. “I’ll show you ‘tired’!” Watson roared. “You spiteful bastard, I’ve had enough of your mocking! Give it here!”

In slow motion, Holmes watched as his new friend rushed at him and reached out, as if to throttle the other man. Gladstone thought he could hear the unfortunate man think.

 _Subject strong and agile, but impaired by rage. Weakness: overbalanced on forward side. Counter: crouch and lift, throwing onto back. Risk of temporary injury: limited to disorientation. Risk of permanent or semi-permanent injury: minimal, if furniture is avoided. Furniture present behind me: wardrobe to left, letterbox table to right. Chance of avoiding furniture: non-zero. Risk level: unacceptable. Change of strategy required._

_Punch to stomach: feasible, though possibly unwarranted by current circumstances. Risk of permanent injury: nil. Risk of jeopardized friendship: appreciable. Exploring alternatives is necessary. Stand still and allow blow to fall: theoretically doable, though humiliating. Risk of any injury: nil. Attacker is Watson. Blow is not likely to be of a harmful nature. Risk of injury to self: none. Risk of temporary injury: to ego only. Conclusion: waving the white flag is optimal._

With a defeated air about him, and a hesitant turning of the cheek, Holmes held his hands up.

Watson’s claws still fell swiftly onto Holmes, but not at his neck, or anywhere like that. Rather, Watson’s hands clapped onto Holmes, onto his shirtfront, and on his sides, and about the midsection. They found nothing. Then Watson sank down each pant leg, and still came up empty. When Watson had no choice but to check the shoes at last, he did so three times.

“I don’t suppose you could untie those, while you’re down there?” Holmes asked sweetly, making a valiant effort to the bitter end to make things light-hearted once more between them. “We’ve been on our feet all day, and I am itching to put mine up.”

It was no good. By the looks of Watson, what little joy and sympathy there was in the world was gone forever. Even his rage was becoming muted by some vague sense of grief. Empty-handed, Watson stood up, though his eyes remained on the floor. He looked like someone who has a great deal to say, and therefore can’t be bothered to say anything.

“Watson?” Holmes spoke tentatively. There was a constricting feeling in his chest, whenever he saw Watson like this. It was a very disagreeable sensation.

“Holmes. If you didn’t want to spend any more time together, you could have told me.” Watson’s voice wasn’t angry and bitter anymore. Yet Holmes had preferred the rage to whatever this unbearable sense of sadness was supposed to be. “You didn’t have to make a show of falling asleep.”

Under most circumstances, Holmes liked to look at Watson. A warm, pleasant cloud filled Holmes, usually, whenever he heard Watson’s wry voice or saw Watson’s laughing eyes. That wasn’t true presently. There was no laugh or wry tone, and Watson wouldn’t even look back at him. Holmes didn’t like it. It made him feel distinctly not-good. “Don’t tell me you’re cross with me about dozing off for a minute or two?” Holmes said. “I didn’t make a show of falling asleep. I fell asleep, by accident. There is a small but important difference between the two.”

“You were lively as a bird in one second, and then asleep on the floor the next. No one falls asleep as arbitrarily as that.”

“I was merely resting my eyes. It can happen to the best of men.”

Watson finally looked up. His face was in pain. Not physical pain, but the other kind. “I’ve never known a better man,” he said softly, and it was so unexpectedly sincere that it dazed Holmes and knocked the breath out of him. “But neither have I known a more temperamental one. I know what you did. You were bored with me, and so you wanted to spite me, and so you drugged yourself, to make me feel bad for dragging you to places that bored you. I should have deduced it the first time you fell asleep on me.”

Holmes parted his lips to object, to tell Watson that Holmes didn’t make sleeping in public a habit of his. As Holmes cast his mind back on it, though, he thought he did remember falling asleep at a bad time on some other occasion. “Twice, it’s happened,” he allowed, “three times at the most. Pure coincidence.”

Watson snorted. “I should have thought you were counting the days, but I’m not surprised. This is the fifth time you’ve made a show of falling asleep on me.”

Holmes frowned. “Five times! Surely not. What do you take me for, a housecat? What a waste of our time it would be, if I slept through everything we did.”

“You didn’t realise?” Honest surprise sent Watson reeling.

“You must be mistaken. It wasn’t five times.” No, it wasn’t to be thought of. “Name them all, I dare you.”

“The first was when I brought you to Hyde Park.” Watson was gentleman enough to omit the precise time of the incident, but it was obvious to everyone in the room that Watson could have also offered the exact day and hour of the transgression. “We took deckchairs to sit on the grass. It was my idea, but I was sure you seemed agreeable, at the time.” He grimaced bitterly, and it was an acute sting to Holmes. “Anyway, there was some boys playing with a ball, and they pulled me into their game, to even out their teams. But when I came back, you were fast asleep. You were not quick to wake, either.”

“Oh, that?” Holmes waved away the objection. “You cannot possibly include that instance. While your observations are unassailable, dear Watson, your conclusions are perhaps a spot too hasy. The sun was hot, and the effect was soothingly soporific. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one, and in this case, it is. I simply,” he spread his arms generously, “fell asleep. I don’t recall you begrudging me for dozing off, at the time.”

“No, I didn’t mind,” Watson conceded hastily, and the quiet undercurrent of fondness in his otherwise dead tone was a congenial balm to the disagreeable tightness inside of Holmes. “But that was only the first time. When I brought you to the races later, it happened again. To think; at the time, I believed it so jolly decent of you to join me there for once. You even put a fiver on Lucky Star.” More life returned to Watson, at the memory. There was a smirk again at his lips, tiny yet beautiful. “You,” Watson stressed, “the man who scoffs at gambling, and self-righteously takes it upon himself to lock my cheque-book in his desk, came with me to bet on horses.” 

“That’s not fair of you, Watson,” Holmes parried deftly. “I’m not an absolute tyrant. Don’t I let you have your cheque-book back when it’s to bet on a sure winner? You’ve won a great deal of money on me, at our civilized gentleman’s boxing club.”

Watson covered his mouth with his arm. “Damn it, don’t make me smile now!” he grumbled into it. Holmes, his every nerve dancing expectantly, could feel victory lurking just around the corner. “Every man in the crowd was out of his seat to see the finish of that race,” Watson continued levelly, when his composure returned, “except for you. You had gone right to sleep. You could have been sleeping through a lecture from a university professor, for all you cared about the race. Did you pick a winner, just so you could prove to me how uninterested you were in the race by sleeping through it?”

Holmes’s jaw fell limp. They had been so close, and then Watson had to go and say something asinine like that. “My dear man! Would I do something so maniacally uncaring and underhanded?” 

At that suggestion, however, Watson’s doubt seemed to rebound to its former weight. “Yes.” He narrowed his eyes. “Yes, you might.”

“To you, I mean!” Holmes quickly corrected, and could have panted from the exertion. Someone should have warned him that friendship would involve so much hard work. “Not to you, I wouldn’t. Surely even I have my limits, at least where it concerns you. I didn’t mean to fall asleep, Watson. Yes, I suppose I was tired, but it was really a very lovely outing. I was enjoying myself spectacularly. How did the race end, by the way? Did I win? Oh, I’m only kidding!” he said, in response to Watson’s dismal expression.

“Are you?” Watson collapsed onto the bed, and crouched forward, so that his head was in his hands. “You were bored, Holmes, weren’t you. You were bored when I took you to Lord’s, too, where you fell asleep in record time.” He straightened up, and looked up wistfully at the ceiling. Holmes looked up, too, hoping to see something enlightening there, but life wasn’t so easy as that. “The worst was at the opera. The opera should have told me everything. You’ve never spoken highly of cricket or racing, yet concerts are one of the few indulgences that never failed to appeal to you. I was positive that you would enjoy the opera with me, if nothing else.” His eyes closed. “Your snoring in the audience—it was a slap in the face.” 

Holmes’s fist curled around the ball in his palm. “Watson.”

“Be honest with me, Holmes. If you can admit to me that you were bored, then I won’t be angry. It seemed that we could be friends, but I should have known that friendship is merely an irritation to you. We can go back to being that type of flatmate that pretends the other doesn’t exist.” 

“Watson.”

“You don’t have to explain. I can’t agree with the childish way you’ve treated me, but I can at least understand it. You regard other people as an unwelcome distraction—”

A mist of perfume was puffed from an atomiser at Watson.

Watson’s eyes opened. Being Holmes’s mate, he was too accustomed to this sort of randomness to be alarmed, so he wasn’t alarmed. Nonetheless, he was startled by the mist, and thrown off his rails. He asked blankly, “Did you just spray perfume in my face?”

“Yes, very effective,” Holmes murmured to himself scientifically. He returned the item to his dressing table, and clapped his ball between his palms. “I’ve found it calms down Gladstone, too, when he’s overly excited. Now that I have your attention, if you will be so good as to observe.” 

Watson was cautious. “Observe what?”

“Merely, this.” Slowly, Holmes rolled up the sleeve above the hand of his that was holding the ball. One roll, two rolls, and then Holmes carefully fished out from inside a small syringe. He flashed the instrument in front of Watson’s staggered expression like hard cash. “You never can remember to check the sleeves, can you?” Holmes wagged the instrument from side to side. “Tut tut! I keep telling you. When it comes to examining males, the sleeves are vital.” He set the needle down, on the dressing table. He didn’t particularly wish to keep waving it in front of Watson.

“Morphine,” Watson whispered hoarsely, nearly inaudibly. “Then… everything I said… it was all true... ”

“Oh, yes, I suppose you were right about some things,” Holmes allowed. He went back to playing with his ball. “You were wrong in almost every particular of significance, of course, but you are progressing remarkably well.”

Watson did a double-take.

“For starters, that isn’t morphine,” Holmes said. “It is cocaine, a fairly low concentration of it. Too low, it seems, but we’ll get to that shortly. In case you didn’t know, cocaine is very different from morphine. Cocaine is a stimulant.”

“Yes, thank you. I know what cocaine is.”

“Do you really? Watson! Think!” The ball went still. A dramatic rush of movement brought Holmes to his knees in front of Watson, which caught Watson’s attention effectively. “Your emotions are clouding your mind, so I’ll excuse you this once, but you must try to think.” He punctuated the sentiment by shaking Watson’s knee before him. “Why would I use cocaine to induce sleep? Morphine depresses, certainly, but cocaine? Cocaine excites. Tell me, how could I have used a stimulant to such a purpose?”

“I—” Watson groaned. “I don’t know. What does it matter? And must you be such a drama queen?”

“Ah!” Holmes cried out, and clutched at his heart. “Ah, Watson! Your deliberate thick-headedness wounds me!”

“Holmes, please.” The heart-warming telltale smirk of affection flickered once more. “Fine! You’re right. It’s impossible,” Watson said. “You couldn’t have used it that way.”

“Excellent.” Holmes pushed up onto his feet again, and paced around his room. “Then, what did I use it for? It is a pretty mystery, isn’t it? Who knows?” He tapped the ball to his chin. “Maybe I didn’t use it?”

Watson sighed. “No,” he confessed half-apologetically. “I saw you use it. We were queued in front of the wheel. You thought that I wasn’t looking.”

Holmes grinned privately, while turned to his door. Watson’s observation skills were improving, indeed—or perhaps he had always been so impressive, from the beginning. Or both. “In that case, you’ll have to reverse your thinking, in order to make sense of all these troublesome acts. How was I using a stimulant to be a spiteful ass, as you claim? Was I really using the stimulant to put myself to sleep?”

There was a long silence. Holmes counted the seconds. One, two, three, four.

A sudden shock roused Watson from his listless stupor. He shot up. “I’ve had it all wrong,” he said breathlessly. “I’ve had it all backwards.”

“Oh?”

“You haven’t not putting yourself to sleep,” Watson declared in astonishment, the same way he did whenever Holmes took him through the expert unravelling of a murder. “You’ve been using that to keep yourself awake!”

“Bravo!” No amount applause was enough, in Holmes’s opinion. He gave it his best, anyway, and clapped heartily. “Your wit is sparkling tonight.”

“But, why?”

“The answer is elementary, my dear Watson. I’ve been using that drug to stay awake.”

“Oh, well,” Watson drawled, “when you put it that way, it’s all perfectly obvious.”

Holmes beamed. He counted Watson’s deliciously charming retort with a retort of his own. “Is that sarcasm, Watson? I almost hoped you meant it!” Surprisingly, the attempt at being charming was successful, judging by the fond, long-suffering grimace than answered it. “Let me put it another way: I haven’t been sleeping. Staying awake can make a man sleepy.”

“You haven’t been sleeping at all?”

“Well, not exactly,” Holmes said. “That would be suicide. No, it’s been a couple of hours of sleep a day, at least, I think.”

There was a fresh look of grave worry about Watson. “But—that is suicide!”

“Ha, now who is the drama queen? It is not suicide.”

“Holmes,” Watson took in a deep breath, “this is serious. You cannot skip sleep. Is it not enough that you sometimes skip meals?”

“I have told you. When I am on the case, I cannot spare the—” 

“—energy for digestion, yes, I know.” Watson’s attitude gave every indication that he hadn’t changed his position on the subject. “And now you can’t spare for the energy for sleep, either? Or is it something else? Nightmares? Insomnia?”

“Nothing of the sort. It simply is more efficient usage of time, to do without sleep. Sleep is a poor way of spending time, you see. The less time I have to sleep, the more time I have to devote to more important things. It may not have worked as I would have liked up until now, but don’t you worry. I just haven’t found the right dosage yet, to keep myself awake. Perhaps if I increase the concentration by two percent—”

“Holmes, go to sleep this instant.” 

“What?”

“Staying awake is a worse practice than you know,” Watson said, rising. “You are going to sleep.”

“But I don’t want to sleep, mummy,” Holmes teased, though less earnestly than he meant to. “I want to stay up. Ah!” Holmes last. ‘That’s another thing you were right about, Watson.” Holmes patted Watson’s arm, and smiled approvingly. “It does indeed appear that I am behaving childishly. Only, you didn’t quite hit the details of it.” Holmes kept laughing, as he turned away. He reached for the preparation of cocaine that glinted from his dressing table. “First this, and then, I think that we should try the hookah first—”

“Oh no, you don’t!” Watson pulled Holmes back. 

A brave struggle ensued between them, which neither man could easily win. Holmes’s ball fell out of his hands as he fought against Watson’s tugging, rolling across the floor to knock gently against Gladstone’s paw. Gladstone, liking the shape of it, and took it between his jaws. It was his now.

“Go to bed!” Watson shouted.

“I’m not tired!”

“Yes, you are!”

“But I can sleep later!”

“I can see your eyes twitching!”

“That’s a hereditary condition!”

“Holmes, you have to sleep eventually, or you’ll make yourself gravely ill!”

“I’d rather be gravely ill, Watson, if it lets me be with you for one moment longer!”

Watson, his brow knitting in intense contemplation, froze.

The loss of the force pulling him caused Holmes to stumble back, clumsily, onto the bed. Blushing madly at his own spirited admission, he crossed his arms and pouted.

“Is that the reason you’re not sleeping?” Watson asked. “Because you want to spend more time with me? That’s it?”

“It sounds awfully sentimental, when you put it like that.” Holmes avoided eye contact. A pounding heat warmed and coloured his face. “It’s really perfectly logical. Life was so much less complicated when I was alone. Now I have you constantly taking me to horse races and concerts. I can’t remain as productive as I have always been. I used to devote almost every hour to my work. Yet I’ve struck upon an ingenious solution. If I give up sleep, I can have my cake, and eat it, too. Half of my time, I can work, and the rest, I can spend with you. Sleep is kept to the barest minimum. It is a brilliant solution, don’t you think so?”

Watson was about to say something. Then, he stopped, and said something else. “I have a different solution.” He methodically picked off each button of his waistcoat, slid off the article, and walked out of the room. 

“Watson?” The cruel weight of the world crushed Holmes like a tomato. Watson had left him. Naturally, this made Holmes very anxious to know what it was that he had done to make Watson go, and whether or not he should go after him. He exchanged questioning glances with Gladstone, to no one’s advantage. 

Before long, however, Watson returned to the room, and the relief it gave Holmes was profound. The cruel weight of the world went down a few dress sizes. Holmes was able to breathe again. Although, Holmes noticed, Watson had returned a changed man. Notably, he was missing his shoes, ties, and cufflinks. He had traded them for his pyjamas. Watson went to Holmes’s bed, sat on the farther side of it, and laid down on the bed as if it were his own. He crossed his arms under his head. 

Holmes peered down at him. “What are you doing?”

“It should be obvious,” Watson replied with a cheekiness that wasn’t innate, but had been learnt from a close friend of his, “that I’m removing your objection to sleep.”

“By proposing to take my bed from me?”

To Holmes’s surprise, Watson’s features softened into something kind. “By proposing to keep you company in it,” he said. 

The world smacked Holmes again. If this blow was cruel, then it was cruel in an entirely different way. Watson could only be pulling his leg. “Keep me company?” Holmes exclaimed. He groped for his old, familiar sardonicism. “That’s a trifle forward,” he managed to come back with. “Don’t you think that you ought to court me first? Take me out to the park, and the opera, and so forth?” Holmes blinked at his own unintended joke, and the struggling sardonicism crumbled. “Wait, no, we did those things. That’s a bad example—”

“Holmes, this is very simple. As your friend, I will stay with you as long as it takes for you to fall asleep.”

“You… will?” 

“You say you’d rather spend time with me than sleep. It’s a fine compliment to pay, if also an incredibly ridiculous one. Well? Why not do both at the same time? You’ll have me around, until you really do fall asleep.”

Holmes’s throat ran dry. No one had ever offered such a kindness to him before. It was all the more kind for how patently absurd it was. It was difficult to work up any suitable response to such kindness. Immediately, he was dying to ask if Watson intended to stay the entire night. “What if you fall asleep before me?” Holmes asked instead.

“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Holmes gasped in an exaggerated manner. “You’ll deliberately keep yourself from falling asleep? My dear Watson! I’ve heard that’s very bad for you!”

“My dear Holmes, would you please hand me your pocket watch?”

Holmes didn’t even think about the irrelevance of the request. He scrambled to be of use, and removed it from his waistcoat. “Oh, why, certainly. Here you are.”

“Thank you.” Watson patiently checked the minute. “Let’s see. All right. You have three minutes to change for bed. If your head is not on that pillow by then, I will assume you don’t wish to spend time with me after all, and retire for the night.”

Holmes laughed, weakly. “Of all that threats that ever been directed at me, that one, by far, is the most cute.”

“Two minutes,” Watson said, seeming quite relaxed in his current position, “fifty-five seconds.”

That did the trick. Holmes couldn’t fight fate. That didn’t mean that Holmes was about to bow down quietly to it, however. He drew out a series of long groans while he pulled off his clothes, and shoved himself into a set of pyjamas similar to Watson’s. Holmes groaned while worked off his shoes, and while he brushed his teeth. He feigned to be in agony while he threw himself down on the closer side of bed. 

The gist of the situation was that he and Watson were now running along parallel lines. Holmes fully intended to go on groaning in mock protest. But after his back fell horizontal onto the sheets, it was hard to deny how welcoming the soft bed was. It wouldn’t hurt for him to close his eyes for only a moment. It was a chore to keep them open all the time, as he had been doing. He probably wouldn’t fall asleep. Although, if he did accidentally go to sleep again, Watson might leave—

“Ah!” Holmes cried, reaching out in sudden panic. His fingers grasped around a strong arm’s wrist. 

A familiar voice was there to reassure him. “I’m still here.”

Reluctantly, Holmes peeled back his weary eyelids. “Ah. Yes. Well. I had to be sure.” He watched Watson, even if Watson was courteous enough not to be watching him. “You never know. You could be gone at any moment.”

“I’m not leaving.” 

Those few, unexpected words filled Holmes with an irresistible joy. He didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t at all clear to him why it should make him so happy that Watson would stay with him. It simply did.

Watson didn’t try to wrench away the limb of his that was still in Holmes’s possession. A soothing calmness exuded from the man. “Holmes, listen. I owe you an apology. I misjudged you. I assumed the worst of you.”

“No, no, you mustn’t apologise. Assuming the worst of me is usually the wisest course.” This produced an amused snort from Watson, and it filled Holmes with ironic pride. “I am the one who must apologise. It can hardly raise one’s spirits to have one’s friend constantly dozing off at all the worst moments. I can see how it might suggest the wrong ideas.” He hummed to himself. “I should have raised the concentration of my dosage considerably.”

“Holmes...” 

“No more emergency stimulant? Fine, fine. Then, I should have let you dragged me to sleep with you sooner. It does make for a much more pleasant resolution than the stimulant, in the end.”

Watson sighed. “Please don’t say any of those words outside this room.”

Holmes laughed. “I do believe I rather like you, Watson.”

“So I gather. You’ve never had any friend before, have you, Holmes?”

“Oh, are we friends? Fascinating. Very fascinating.” Holmes, having lost most of his will to resist the pull, closed his eyes once again. “I don’t have the experience to recognise friendship, myself. It’s a devilishly frightening concept, in theory.”

The strength of the fingers around Watson’s wrist grew weak, as Holmes slipped away. Watson’s own fingers took up the job of holding onto Holmes. “Yes,” Watson said, “we are friends.”

A flood of happiness washed over Holmes. Some memories of their short friendship painted the walls of his mind, as did some hopes for riding the big wheel again in the near future. Holmes would show Watson he was serious: he wouldn’t fall asleep on him again. To accomplish that, Holmes knew deep down that no amount of cocaine would work forever. He would have to go back to sleeping. That was an annoying limit on his time with Watson, certainly. 

On the other hand, as long as sleep was really for Watson’s sake, Holmes could put up with the sacrifice. And if he could occasionally share these dull hours with Watson, too…

Holmes stole back Watson’s warm hand, and hugged Watson’s pyjama-covered arm to his chest, clutching it like a treasured stuffed animal. “Good night, Watson,” he mumbled, as if he were asleep already, all the while wondering if Watson would possibly let him get away with this.

His answer was the sound of the best, most enchanting laughter that Holmes had ever heard.

Holmes smiled to himself. Despite all its inconveniences and its troubles, Holmes decided, friendship was worth it, if it could stuff his heart to the brim with so many feelings of warmth and affection.

From where he sat surreptitiously by the door, Gladstone wagged his tail. He liked where this was going. Taking with him the ball that Holmes had dropped, he jumped up onto the foot of the bed, and crawled up. He curled in between Holmes and Watson, dropped his prize between them, and finally went back to sleep to the feeling of Watson’s hand stroking his ear.

* * *

A week later, Holmes and Watson were returning once again to Baker Street after a day-long excursion. This one hadn’t been a pleasure cruise. Holmes had dragged Watson on a cab chase around town after a few members of a foreign crime syndicate, and both men were thoroughly exhausted. 

Gladstone listened to their banter, while he looked out the window and waited for the sun to rise, so that he could see the dogs outside.

“Sometimes, one feels that there aren’t enough hours in the day, Watson.”

“On the contrary, Holmes, I thought there were more than enough of them today.”

“I should have liked to have had more. It has been all work and no play for us, today. We haven’t had enough time to enjoy one other’s company, if you follow my meaning. It’s a terrible tragedy, isn’t it? It would be so much better if we didn’t have to part so soon. Don’t you agree?”

A brief silence. Then, “I’ll be there in three minutes.”

“This three-minutes-mania of yours is most worrisome. Perhaps it would be prudent to bring you to a mentalist.”

“Two minutes, fifty—”

“Yes, yes! By Jove, some people are in such a hurry these days.”

Gladstone heard one frantic trail footsteps rush about flat, in juxtaposition with another, more placid tread. He listened as Watson strode away with dignity into his own room, and as Holmes hurried about virtually everywhere until ultimately flying like a pyjama-wearing missile into Watson’s room. Gladstone’s tail fanned the air. He trotted away from the window and followed the path of the missle. 

End.


End file.
